A very deep understanding of the meaning of the
symbolism of the donkey in the Christian scriptures expounded by the twelfth
century Persian mystical poet Farid al-Din Attar, is the topic of today's
article.

The donkey or mule is endowed with the character
of stubbornness. The ego of man which is the embodiment of the "senses
identified" self is also notorious for its stubbornness. The ego wants to
possess the object of its desire at all cost. This raises the question then why
was man invested with this morally and spiritually debilitating ego. There is a
reason and this reason is survival or self preservation. This is a natural
evolutionary trait which made possible the propagation of the species.

The ego is invested with the subtle elements of perception
of danger but the mind is the rider which overrules these subtle promptings and
leads the self in its own path.

The story of Balaam in the Bible is a clear example
of this inner meaning. Balaam's donkey sees the angel of the Lord blocking the
road with a sword in hand and tries three times to stop on its tracks but
Balaam beats the donkey. The donkey is then endowed with speech and says:

"............, "Am I not your own
donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of
doing this to you?" "No," he said. Then the LORD opened Balaam's
eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword
drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown." .......Book of Numbers 22:30-31

When we are dominated by our ego we are blind to
subtler realities. The angel of the Lord is sent to block Balaam from his
reckless path. The whole episode is an allegorical event where the players play
out the inner process or struggle between the subtle perception of the ego and
the dominant nature of the mind controlled only by sense perceptions.

Farid al-Din Attar says "As Jesus rode his
donkey, ride on it; Your stubborn self must bear you and submit......" Let
us refer to this event in the Gospel of John.

"Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it,
as it is written, "Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is
coming, seated on a donkey's colt." At first his disciples did not
understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these
things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him. Now
the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him
from the dead continued to spread the word." .........John 12:14-17

The event in the life of Jesus also points to
Christ consciousness, which is the full realization of the Divine nature of the
Self, rides the ego into an entry into glory. We must carefully look at the
reason why John talks of the disciples not grasping this triumphant entry
riding the donkey but those people who witnessed the rising of Lazarus were able
to understand the significance.

The story is very similar to Balaam's encounter
who realized his recklessness only after the glorified vision of the angel was
presented to his senses and Jesus disciples understood the significance only after
he was glorified in his resurrection and he appears to them to be visually
grasp his Divine nature by the senses.

This mystical poem of Farid al-Din Attar and the
passages from the scriptures, point to a deeper truth of the relation between
the subtler nature of the ego and how sense perceptions tend to be dominated by
the dictates of the conditioned mind. This knowledge should empower us to
listen closely to our inner voice.

Ego which is essential for physical survival also
has another dimension which is its guidance for spiritual elevation. For this
to take place we must ride the Ego mind. Or in the words of great spiritual
guru, Ram Dass:

"Ours is a journey toward simplicity, toward
quietness, toward a kind of joy that is not in time. In this journey out of
time to “Now-Here,” we are leaving behind every model we have had of who we
thought we were.

This journey involves a transformation of our
being so that our thinking mind becomes our servant rather than our master.
It’s a journey that takes us from primary identification with our psyche to
identification with our souls, then to identification with God, and ultimately
beyond any identification at all." ........Ram Dass

Thank you for your observation. When we operate in a purely materialist mode our ego is stubborn. This is the case with more than 80% of the seven billion people in this world. This is the analysis that we have in integral psychology mapping developed by Clare Graves. Ego wants to posses and our minds are the root cause for this ego attribute. While basically the Self or ego (donkey) is fundamentally perceptive to higher level dictates of consciousness, it is the mind (the rider) who through his conditioned mindset makes the donkey (ego) go the rider's way. Please read the full story of Balaam in Chapter 22 of Book of Numbers and with your deep analytic mind you would see the symbolism.

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